The Basics of MRI
Joseph P. Hornak
PREFACE
Welcome to the latest version of The Basics of MRI.
This version version has an option to view the material in English on mobile devices.
The mobile version does not use frames.
Therefore, some major changes have been made to the presentation of the mobile version.
The original versions have the same features as always. These are described below.
Organization
The educational content of this package is organized into 15 chapters.
These fifteen chapters may be accessed by clicking on the chapter title in the table of contents with the mouse.
Each chapter has several sub sections.
The titles of the sub sections are listed at the top of each chapter.
The text of a chapter may ontains links to other chapters in this book.
Clicking on one of these will bring up the location in the new chapter containing the reference material.
The chapters also contain definitions of terms that appear when the cursor is positioned on the word, abbreviation, or acronym.
These are indicated by a dotted underline.
There are over 100 terms defined in the glossary and 118 symbols in a list of symbols.
Both the symbols and glossary can be viewed in their entirety by clicking on them in the table of contents.
Each entry in the glossary contains a link to a chapter where it was first introduced.
This feature therefore makes the glossary also serve as an index.
You may further search for a term in a chapter with the edit find command of your browser.
Placing the cursor on the reference symbol (
) brings up the reference in a small window.
You may view the entire list of references by clicking on the references entry in the table of contents.
The text contains several play icons (
).
These icons display images, figures, and animations.
The answer icon (
), located in a problem section at the end of a chapter, displays the answer to a problem.
Long answers require you to click on the answer icon.
Short answers are indicated by a a dotted underlined answer icon.
These answers require you to place your cursor on the icon, causing a small window with the answer to appear.
The proof icon (
) and details icon (
) bring up a proof of an equation and more details on a topic.
The bottom of each text page contains markers to send you to the top of the current chapter,
back one chapter, and ahead one chapter.
There are occasional references to previous and future chapters in the text.
When the word chapter and the accompanying number are underlined you may click on the word and go directly to that chapter.
Some chapters contain audio segments.
An audio segment is indicated by a special, browser specific symbol.
You may start the sound segment playing through your computer's audio system using the play start/stop button.
The volume may be decreased from your computer's current setting by clicking on the volume button and adjusting the volume control.
The content of this package has been organized so that background material and
underlying principles are introduced first in separate chapters.
Each chapter builds on the previous one.
The very knowledgeable student may elect to skip these chapters;
however this is discouraged as often times nomenclature, conventions, and symbols are introduced in these introductory chapters.
Learning Styles
Did you every think about how you learn?
Humans tend to learn by taking information into their brains through their five senses.
For most of us the order of importance of the senses for learning is: sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste.
Unless you are a wine taster, you probably do not learn too much by taste,
and unless you are taking a chemistry lab, not too much by smell.
Touch is very important for artists, airline pilots, and the blind.
Those of us in the sciences rely on vision and hearing for most of our information,
so it should come as no surprise that the formal educational experiences available to us are
designed to provide audio and visual information.
There are further differences in learning styles worth mentioning here.
Some of us learn better with language and others pictures, while others learn better by doing.
That is why some people prefer to learn by reading a description and others seeing a diagram or picture,
while still others must work an idea out for themselves.
Some language learners learn best by reading a description and others must hear the description.
Everyone has a different preferred learning style.
For these reasons The Basics of MRI contains a variety of learning experiences.
Text for those that learn best by reading, diagrams and animations for those that learn best be seeing pictures,
problems for those that learn best by doing, and audio clips to help learn by hearing.
It is important for you to understand your preferred learning style and to take advantage of the experiences in
this book that help you learn best.
Acknowledgements
The idea for this package grew out of two earlier Microsoft DOS based educational packages on
nuclear magnetic resonance imaging and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy.
Many of the figures used in this package were prepared by Dmitriy Beryoza,
Ann Cecchi, Manish Kadaki, and Dimitrios Psarros. The cover design is by Elizabeth Jurkowski.
The magnetic resonance images used in this package were collected using a General Electric, 1.5 Tesla,
magnetic resonance imager located at the Magnetic Resonance Imaging Center at the University of Rochester's
Strong Memorial Hospital. Dr. Saara M. Totterman's assistance in providing access to this facility is greatly appreciated.
Copyright
The Basics of MRI is copyrighted © 1996-2020 by J.P. Hornak.
All Rights Reserved.
No part of this educational package may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means: digital, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior written permission of the author,
Joseph P. Hornak, Center for Imaging Science, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY 14623-5604.
The Basics of MRI was created as a private undertaking without commercial or government support.
The material in The Basics of MRI is made available for viewing on the web at no charge.
It is therefore our policy to charge commercial endeavors for a nonexclusive right to use material from The Basics of MRI.
For information on the use of material from The Basics of MRI, please send your request to the author.
Students may request to use figures from The Basics of MRI in a thesis or school project provided the material is not placed on the internet and the material is properly cited.
Interested students should send their specific request to the author.
A license for this software package may be purchased so you may have a copy for use on your own computer.
This will eliminate network download delays associated with accessing the software from our location.
Please see Software License in the Table of Contents for details.
Citing
When citing material from this hypertect book please use the full title, author's name, copyright year, url,
and publisher (Interactive Learning Software, Henietta, NY). This might read: "J.P. Hornak, The Basics of MRI, Interactive Learning Software, Henrietta, NY, 2012, http://www.cis.rit.edu/htbooks/mri/."
Copyright © 1996-2020 J.P. Hornak.
All Rights Reserved.